NJ Future And Democratic Legislators About To Screw NJ Residents To Protect Private Water Company Profits And Investor Returns

Burden Of Paying Put On Residents, Not Corporations & Investors

Billions of Dollars In Water Infrastructure Investments Involved

NJ Spotlight reports today that Democratic legislators are moving legislation [S253[1R] that would dramatically shift the costs of paying for critical public health protections away from private water companies and their investors to NJ homeowners and businesses:

The cost of upgrading the infrastructure remains a thorny issue, as reflected in a late change to S-253 on how the cost should be divided. A late amendment to the bill would require investor-owned utilities to bear 60% of the cost of replacing lead service lines, with ratepayers paying for the remainder — a change from language in the original bill that would require ratepayers to pay only 25% of the bill.

The bill’s sponsors, Singleton and state Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Mercer), agreed to the 60-40 formula after discussions with stakeholders including the state Department of Environmental Protection, Board of Public Utilities and the Governor’s Office, said David Smith, Singleton’s policy coordinator.

Why are the Murphy administration and Democratic legislators protecting private water company profits and investor returns over the interests of everyday people?

Billions of dollars are at stake.

This is really not surprising given the NJ Democratic Party’s support of privatization of water and sewer systems (and that terrible fast tracking privatization law passed!)

And just as we predicted, NJ Future supported private corporate interests and the allocation of a larger burden of costs to ratepayers.

But NJ Future – echoing the greed of private water companies – went even further to argue that people should pay 100% of the infrastructure upgrade costs, with private companies paying ZERO!

The utilities, for example, want ratepayers to pay the whole cost of infrastructure upgrades — but that, he said, would be “unfair.”

New Jersey Future, too, wants ratepayers in all but the most impoverished areas to pay all the cost for lead service line replacement, [NJ Future’s] Sturm said. She argued that the costs would be modest when spread across most ratepayers.

We predicted exactly this would happen:

Today, privatization and Foundation abuses combine, in an effort to hijack the agenda for responding to the public health crisis of lead in drinking water, see: Jersey Water Works Forms Task Force Focused on Lead in State’s Drinking Water. […]

The work of the Task Force is under the control of NJ Future, a “planning” group with a corporate and development oriented Board and a very checkered political history, going back to “smart growth” collaboration with the Whitman administration and more recently including secret planning with the Christie administration to privatize and develop Liberty State Park, a failed scheme (as the Bergen Record reported:)

Of course, the Task Force includes several representatives of the water companies that seek to avoid high cost real solutions, like regulatory mandates and community involvement to solving the lead problems.

NJ Future is not a public health, environmental or public interest group. They are a private group who represent corporate and development interests. They have no membership other than the corporate interests on their Board and the private foundations who fund them.They are a classic example of what I’ve called Green Cannibals.

Why is NJ Future considered a legitimate public “Stakeholder” by Legislators and the media spokespersons on this critical public issue?

I fired off this email to NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle and his editor John Mooney:

Jon – your report today:

“New Jersey Future, too, wants ratepayers in all but the most impoverished areas to pay all the cost for lead service line replacement, Sturm said. She argued that the costs would be modest when spread across most ratepayers.”

You need to disclose to readers who NJ Future represents – look at their Board and look at who funds them. Look at the membership of the coalition they are involved in and who funds them. NJ Future is NOT a public interest, public health, or environmental advocacy group. Your readers deserved to know that. And why would such a private and biased group be the lead spokesperson on a public health issue?

We warned folks that exactly this would happen, see:

Foundation Elites and Private Water Companies Hijack Lead In Drinking Water Issue

http://www.wolfenotes.com/2019/01/foundation-elites-and-private-water-companies-hijack-lead-in-drinking-water-issue/

Wolfe